Kate's Past
by E. Limberg
Summary: Different scenarios of how Jack came to learn about Kate's life prior to the island. Chapter 1 - late season 1. Chapter 2 - end of season 4. Chapter 3 - mid season 3. Chapter 4 - early season 2.
1. Chapter 1

"You coming to see me, Freckles?" Sawyer smirks at her, setting his book aside.

She ignores him, fully intending to continue on her way past his tent and into the woods without acknowledging him.

"Well that's no way to treat a man trying to show you some attention," he replies, standing up from his salvaged airplane seat and stepping into her path.

"I don't need your attention, Sawyer," she takes a step to move past him.

He takes a step to the left, moving directly in front of her again, "Right, Freckles. Just keep playing hard to get."

Kate stares at him, not responding to his taunts and waiting for him to let her get on her way.

He, unfortunately, does not move from her path, "If I was the only man left on this island, you wouldn't be resisting this."

"There would still be nothing going on between us even if you were the last man on this island," she laughs. "But I'm sure that there would be some other women here desperate enough for your company, Sawyer. Besides, I'm not really interested in the whole sharing thing."

His smirk widens, "And what if it was just the two of us left? We'd be responsible for repopulating the island."

"If we were the last two people on this island, repopulating it would be the last thing I would be concerned with."

"Ah, so you'd just be jumping me and not worrying about the consequences. Sorry to break the news to you, Sweet Cheeks, but I don't think birth control is available on this island."

She frowns, shaking her head at him, "No, there's not a lot of medical supplies on this island at all. So when I die from complications during the pregnancy… you'll be all alone."

"Gosh, Freckles, you don't have to be so mean. I thought you were my only friend on this darn island."

"You're trying very hard to get in my pants for someone claiming to be a friend," she tries to step around him again, but he cuts her off once again, this time placing a hand on her arm.

"That's my secret - I become their friend first and then I charm them into my bed," he flashes his blue eyes at her.

"Can I give you some advice then, one friend to another?" When he doesn't speak, she bites her lip before continuing, "If you tried to be a little nicer and less… piggish, you might get some more friends and have a better chance at the second part of your plan."

"Oh, Freckles," Sawyer laughs, squeezing her arm gently before letting go, his fingers trailing softly down her arm before falling back to his side. "What do I need more friends for? You just said you don't like sharin'."

"It's never going to happen, Sawyer," she shakes her head gently, a small smile on her lips, then gives his shoulder a shove to move him out of her way.

Sawyer watches her for a moment, grin still on his face, then calls out after her, "I'll wear you down eventually, Freckles." She waves a hand at him dismissively, not bothering to turn around as she continues on her path into the jungle.

After fifteen minutes of trekking through the woods, Kate stops, looking up at the trees around her. Suddenly she hears a branch crack behind her, and she whips around, looking for the source. "I swear, Sawyer, if you followed me out here…" she calls out, reaching down for a rock by her foot.

"It's not Sawyer," a familiar male voice says, and Jack comes out from behind a tree, hands held up in the air. Kate lets the rock fall from her hand, and he drops his arms.

"Why'd you follow me, Jack?"

He shrugs, "It's dangerous out here. What are you doing out in the woods alone anyway?"

"Getting food," she points at the tree above her.

He steps closer to her, looking up into the trees. "More mangoes."

"Well, as the resident vegetarian on the island, I have to find something to eat. Plus you guys can't just eat fish and boar."

Jack laughs, "So you're going to climb that tree to get the mangoes?"

"Unless you want to," she smiles at him.

"I haven't climbed a tree since I was ten, Kate. And I fell out of it."

"So there's actually something you're not good at?"

He returns her smile, "Well I never claimed to be perfect."

After adjusting her backpack, she jumps up, wrapping her arms around the branch just a few inches over her head. Jack steps closer to her, worried that she will fall as she pulls herself up and hooks a leg over the tree branch. "You know, I could have lifted you up there."

"Where's the fun in that?" she flashes him a grin before pulling her feet up and standing on the branch, already reaching up for the next one. "Besides, I wouldn't have had assistance anyway if you hadn't followed me out here."

As she gets settled straddling the next branch up and starts to fill her bag with mangoes, Jack follows her lead, pulling himself up onto the branch that she had started with. Once he gets seated on the branch, he watches her gathering the fruit in the branch up and to the left of his head.

"Are you going to help me or just watch?" Kate asks, smirking down at him as she catches him staring.

"Well I can't reach any mangoes from here, and I don't think I want to go any higher," he says, looking cautiously up at the branches above him. "Besides, I can't do all the work around this place."

She doesn't respond as she moves a little further out on the branch to continue collecting fruit. After a few minutes of watching, Jack speaks again. "I saw you and Sawyer talking before you left the beach. You shouldn't have to put up with his crap, Kate. I can talk to him-"

"Yes, because talking to him is going to change anything," she says sarcastically with an eye roll.

"I'm serious, Kate."

"Jack, you're just going to make things worse if you try to talk to him. And I can handle him - it's all talk anyway with him."

He sighs, looking away from her for a moment. When he looks back at her, he finds her closing up her bag which is now full of mangoes. "And what if it becomes more than just talk?"

Kate studies him for a long moment, then reaches down to him, handing her bag to him. "Your protection is very sweet, Jack, but it isn't needed. Now, if you're not going to climb up here, hand me your backpack so I can fill it up too."

He maneuvers himself on the branch to take her bag and to replace it with his own. Watching her go back to collecting the mangoes, he presses his point again. "You should be careful around him, Kate."

"He's not going to hurt me. Yes, he may say some rather rude things, but he's not going to physically try anything."

"I don't get it, Kate. Why are you defending him? We've only been here a few weeks; how much do all of us really know about each other?"

"Sawyer is a jackass, but I assure you he is harmless," she says adamantly as she zips up his bag.

"How do you know, Kate?" Jack presses her again, not sure that her assessment of the Southerner is correct.

She slips his bag onto her back, then looks down at him, something dark flashing in her eyes, "Because I have had experience with way worse than him before."

He is unable to formulate a response as he tries to process what her statement means. After a few moments, he realizes that he now staring at an empty tree branch. He twists around, looking for her in the other branches. "Kate? I didn't mean to hurt you, Kate. Please don't run away from me."

Something touches his leg, and he kicks out in surprise, narrowly missing her face. "Whoa, it's just me, Jack." He calms down when he sees her standing below him, now firmly on the ground. "If you want the story, you should probably get down from the tree. I can't be responsible for you falling out of it."

He puts her backpack on before leaning down to grab ahold of the branch and swinging his leg over it. Once his own feet are also on the ground, he turns and studies her. "You don't have to tell me, Kate," he says softly, reaching out for a shoulder. Before his fingers touch her, he thinks twice about touching her, not wanting to make her uncomfortable after what he thought she had just admitted moments ago, and lets his hand fall back to his side.

She frowns when his hand falls, knowing already that telling him would change his view of her. "Jack… I haven't told anyone the full story of what I did. But I want to tell you. Even if it makes you hate me."

"I told you that everyone gets a second chance on this island. And I still mean it. If you want to tell me, I will listen. But this can be your secret to keep if you want to, Kate."

"You wouldn't let Tom's airplane go when we found the marshal's case, but you're willing to just let this go now?" When he nods, she breaks eye contact and reaches for his hand. She leads him away from the tree that they had climbed and after few moments, she speaks again. "I killed my stepdad."

He glances over at her briefly as they walk but finds her looking straight ahead. There are a million questions running through his head, but he keeps his mouth shut and allows her to tell him at her own pace.

"He beat my mother. She refused to leave him. So I took out an insurance policy on her house, and when he came home drunk one evening while she was at work, I blew the house up with him in it."

They walk along in silence for several more minutes before Jack finally speaks. "Did he…?" he finds that he can't even bring himself to say the words.

"When I was twelve, I tried to stop him from beating her. He knocked me down the stairs, and I ended up with a broken arm. When my mother still stuck around after that, he wasn't so afraid to shove me around anymore. And then when I turned seventeen, he went from hitting me to calling me pretty and touching me. And then he came into my bedroom one night."

"Kate...I don't think I can listen to anymore," Jack tugs at her hand.

"I ran away and stayed with Tom for a while after that… and I made sure that I had a knife under my pillow when I did finally go home. He would still touch me sometimes but he never… never came to my room again."

"He deserved it, Kate. If we ever get off this island, just… just tell them the truth. No one can blame you for what you did."

She stops walking, tugging him to a stop as well, "It was my mother who turned me in, Jack. Not that they wouldn't have found some other evidence against me. But it would have been her word against mine. She covered up all of the abuse; why would they believe me when I said that it wasn't just her?" He stares down at their joined hands, unable to say anything. "She was diagnosed with cancer while I was on the run. Tom helped me get into the hospital to see her, but when she saw me, she called for help. Tom… he got in the car with me while I was trying to escape. They had the exit blocked, and he refused to get out of the car. They started firing at us."

"I'm sorry, Kate," Jack pulls her into a hug, and he can feel a few damp spots appear on his shirt. He feels her trembling in his arms as she lets the tears fall.

A few moments pass before she pulls back, wiping her eyes with her hands and then wrapping her arms protectively around herself and continuing on their path. He watches her, momentarily stunned, before racing to catch up. When he is next to her again, she continues. "A few weeks before I killed him, I was looking through some old pictures my mom had. There was one of my dad with his army buddies overseas when they were in the war… and the date on the back was four months before I was born. And that's how I found out she had an affair with Wayne when my dad was gone… and that Wayne was my real father. And I decided then that I had to kill him. I just couldn't stand that someone so terrible was a part of me."

"Kate…" he reaches for her arm, wanting her to stop and look at him, but she flinches away from his touch.

"I don't deserve your pity. Wayne was a terrible person, but I killed him in cold-blood. In trying to escape from the bad things he did, I just lowered myself down to his level. I'm not a good person, Jack; I can't be perfect like you," she says, finally looking into his brown eyes.

"No one is asking you to be perfect, Kate. Maybe you made some mistakes previously but you were in a horrendous situation. But you've taken advantage of this opportunity to start over again on the island. You're always the first to volunteer to go out and explore, you bring food for us, you take care of everyone, you take care of me," Jack cautiously reaches out for her arm again, making sure she sees his hand this time, and she doesn't flinch away as he touches her.

"I'm sorry, Jack. I didn't want you to look at me differently because of what I did, because of what he did. But if you don't want to be friends with me now, I understand," she avoids his gaze, worried that he is going to leave her.

He hesitates for a moment, watching her carefully as she looks down at their feet. "I… I don't know about being friends." Startled by this, she raises her eyes back up to his face, hurt and confusion visible in her eyes. "I kind of thought we were more than just friends, Kate," he gives her a soft but hesitant smile.

She returns it with a shy smile of her own, reaching for his hand, "I guess I had hoped… But if we're going to do this, Jack, there is something you should know."

"I think you've told me a lot of things already, Kate. If you have worse stories than this, I don't think I want to know them right now," he squeezes her hand.

She places her free hand on his cheek and leans in to press a gentle kiss on the opposite cheek, taking a moment afterwards to look at him before responding. "I just… I'm terrible at relationships, Jack."

He laughs, "I don't know that I'm much better, Kate. My wife divorced me a couple years ago. But we can learn how to do this together. Just don't shut me out."

"I've been on my own for so long, Jack. I might need you to remind me when I'm being too closed off."

"Deal," he smiles and takes a step forward to close the distance between them, his lips pressing against her forehead as his arms come around her.

Kate wraps her arms around his neck and enjoys his embrace. After several minutes pass, she pulls back and takes his hand, leading him towards the beach. "You know… you don't have to treat me like I'm fragile or something. You could have kissed me for real… if you wanted."

"You could have kissed me for real too," he teases, bumping his shoulder against hers. When she doesn't respond, he tugs on her hand and pulls her to a stop. "I wanted to kiss you, Kate. I just didn't want our first kiss to be clouded with the memories of everything you shared with me minutes ago. This just means that I get to surprise you with it later."

"Or I can surprise you," she counters with a smirk, tugging him forward again. They walk along in silence for a few moments before she speaks again. "So you followed me all the way out here to talk about Sawyer? Are you jealous of him or something, Jack?" she teases.

"I… Well, I guess I have no reason to be jealous now. And the offer still stands, Kate. If you want me to talk to him, I will."

She shakes her head, "I can handle him. I know he's a jerk… but we are friends… sort of. But my feelings for him do not go beyond that, and I am asking for you to understand that, Jack. He won't come between us."

"Except I think his feelings for you are a little different."

"He'll give it up eventually, Jack."

"Enough about Sawyer," he squeezes her hand as they step out of the trees and onto the beach, heading through the sand to the camp. "Do you want to come to my cave tonight?"

"I…"

"For dinner," he adds hurriedly. "I didn't mean it that way. Though you are more than welcome to stay if you want."

"Or you could come here for dinner," she counters.

"Fine, if you're going to be stubborn about it, then I'll take you for a picnic away from both of our camps. I have to go check on everyone at the caves and grab some things. But I'll come back to pick you up in a few hours."

"Sounds good," she smiles as they stop outside her tent.


	2. Chapter 2

Jack is standing against the railing to the boat, looking out over the sea, when Kate approaches him from behind, the baby in her arms. "Couldn't sleep?" She shakes her head softly. "You or him?"

"Me. Like usual."

"I can take him for a while. Maybe you could get some more rest if you didn't have to worry about him."

"He's fine. But if I'm up, you should go take my bed. You shouldn't have to try to find somewhere up here to rest every night, Jack, just because there aren't enough rooms on the boat. And Sun's fast asleep now in the top bunk; I'm sure she won't mind if you crash in my bed for a while," Kate nudges, trying to get him to take care of himself.

"It's okay, Kate. Sayid and Hurley both offered their beds, but I couldn't fall asleep down there. Somehow it's a little easier up here being able to see the stars."

She follows his gaze upwards, "I know the feeling."

His gaze turns to study her as she adjusts Aaron in her arms. When the boy starts to fuss, he touches her back gently to get her attention before holding his arms out, "Let me take him for a while. Give you a rest."

She looks down at the baby in her arms for a long moment, waiting for him to settle back down to sleep, then gently places him in Jack's arms. After studying the boy that is now in his arms for a moment longer, she quietly says, "I think this is a mistake, Jack."

"I know I may not be as good at this as you, but I think I can manage to hold him for a bit, Kate."

"Not you, Jack. Me. Trying to convince everyone that he's mine." She walks over to the table on deck and sits down in one of the chairs, pulling her legs up and wrapping her arms around them.

"It'll be okay," he follows her and sits down in the chair next to hers. "We could always just say that there was a pregnant woman that survived the crash but that she died from complications during birth. And you adopted him."

"They aren't just going to believe that I was six months pregnant when the plane crashed. I didn't look pregnant when I stepped on that plane; even if the marshal isn't here to testify, the farmer that I stayed with in Australia for three months and the airport security guards could certainly say that I wasn't pregnant."

"Some women still aren't really showing at six months. And if you had been on the run for a while, you likely wouldn't have been getting proper prenatal care, could explain why he was maybe a little small and why you wouldn't have been showing."

"I can't feed him," she argues. "What did he eat for three months on a deserted island if I wasn't feeding him?"

"Kate, you're overthinking this. We've just been through a terrible few months. No one is going to be asking all of these details of us. And if they do, just be vague; they're not going to question our story when something clearly happened to our plane," he tries to comfort her.

"The airline may let these details go, but the court is not going to, Jack. They're going to put me in prison as soon as we get home."

"Is that why you want him to be yours? So you can get sympathy in court?" Jack asks, his voice rising.

When Aaron starts to fuss again, Kate reaches out to take him from the doctor. "I thought we knew each other better than that now. I knew that the people on that freighter knew about my past, and they were our only hope of getting off the island; if I didn't want to face what I did, I wouldn't have left that island." While there is a bitterness in her voice directed at him, she gently rocks the baby back to sleep. Once his eyes close again, she stands, heading back toward the railing to look out at the ocean, just as she did on the island. "Claire was my friend. And I helped deliver him. If we can't rescue them from the island, the least I could do is help raise him and tell him about his mother when he's older."

"I'm sorry, Kate," he follows her, leaning his forearms against the railing as he comes to stand beside her again. "It's wrong of me to judge you based on the fact that you're a fugitive. Looking back on it now, you've really done nothing that would make me questions you as a person. If I hadn't seen your mugshot myself, I would never suspect you of… whatever it is you did."

She stares at him for a long moment, weighing whether or not she should tell him. Ultimately she gives in, knowing he would find out when they arrest her once they got back to the US. "I killed my father."

He continues to stare out at the water, allowing himself some time to process this. "But the toy plane…?" he finally turns to her, not able to put the pieces together.

"Tom was my best friend growing up, my first love. He was killed trying to help me escape from the cops one time. It was my fault that he died."

"And your father's death… that was also some kind of an accident or something that they are trying to blame you for?"

She turns around, leaning her back against the railing. "Definitely not an accident. I blew up my parents' house. He was drunk and passed out in bed at the time."

"Certainly sounds like it could be an accident."

"Not when you take out an insurance policy on the house two weeks prior and confess to your mother."

"I thought he was the one who taught you how to track and hunt."

"My mother had an affair when my dad was overseas for the war and ended up pregnant with me. When they got divorced several years later, she married the guy she had the affair with, the one who was my real father. I didn't find out he was my real father until just a few years ago. The guy I thought was my dad this whole time is the one who taught me those things." She rocks Aaron and avoids looking at Jack as she speaks.

"Kate…" he starts, but he doesn't know what he wants to say.

"I know that I am a horrible person, Jack."

"No, you're not. I've seen you take care of everyone on the island. And seeing you with him now… I know that you will love him and that you will keep him safe," he gestures to Aaron. "Something big had to set you off, Kate. What did he do?"

Kate hesitates for a long time before speaking again. "They got married a year after my parents got a divorce. And everything was fine for the first few months… or as fine as it can be when you're a little kid and don't get why your parents don't love each other anymore. But then he started hitting her. Pushing her around. Never in front of me, not for a while. But I'd come home and she'd have some new injury, some stupid excuse for how it happened. Until he came home drunk one night when I was ten and beat her right in front of me."

When he sees her swipe the back of her hand against her eyes, he reaches out to take Aaron from her again. "Did she… did he end of killing her? Is that why you…?"

"She's the one who turned me in for killing him."

Jack leads her over to a bench and they sit down side by side. "Did… Kate, did he hurt you too?"

She gives a kind of half-shrug in response. "I tried to stop him from hurting her once the next year, and he slapped me. He made sure that I wasn't home or was locked in my room after that. And then a couple years later I came home to find him beating her again, stepped in between them and his punch landed on my collar bone instead of her face."

"Why didn't you ever go to the police? Why didn't she?"

"Because she loved him. I tried to convince her a few times, but she wouldn't listen to me, told me things would get better." She pulls Penny's borrowed sweater tighter and wraps her arms around herself. "I wanted to tell them. But he threatened me, told me he would make things worse for her - and for me - if I told them what he had done when he finally took me to the hospital. And I listened to him. Tom was the only person that I have ever told about any of this."

"I take it the story isn't going to get any better from here," he wraps an arm around her shoulders, trying to provide some comfort. When she remains stiff and doesn't respond to him, his thoughts instantly darken, wondering how much worse this possibly could get for her. "Kate… please… I can't… Did he- no, I don't think I can…" Jack is unable to form the right words, reluctant to even ask as he is very sure that he doesn't want to hear her answer.

It takes a few moments for her to answer, her mouth opening and closing a few times before she finally finds her voice. "He would grab at me and make some… suggestive comments. Always made sure my mom was not around when he did. I hoped she would leave him if only she knew…" Kate moves her hand to cover his on her shoulder, still keeping her arms tight around her body. "I came home and found him drunk one night. Mom was at work. He followed me to my bedroom. I… I don't know if he just wanted to use me as a punching bag that night or if he was after something more. I kicked him and ran out of the house, never really gave him another opportunity to try something again."

He shifts his hand, entangling their fingers. "Kate, no jury would convict you for killing him if you just told everyone what he did."

"Even if they let me off on that, I've done other things on the run that they could convict me for, things that someone who is supposedly innocent and a victim in all of this probably should not have done. Resisting arrest, escaping custody, Tom's death, bank robbery…"

"You robbed a bank?" he looks over at her, more shocked now than when she had admitted to killing her father.

"Yes… The marshal was taunting me with Tom's airplane after he died, put it in a safety deposit box. I met a guy, convinced him and his buddies to help me rob the bank. I didn't take anything but the plane."

"Did anyone get hurt?"

"Just the guys I came in there with. They wanted to shoot the manager, the other people in the bank, and I had told them that no one was to get hurt. So I shot them, didn't intend to kill them but I didn't stick around long enough to see if any of the wounds were fatal."

"Bank robber with a conscience."

She bumps his shoulder with her own and reaches out to touch Aaron's cheek softly. "They're never going to let me keep him, even if I can convince them that he is mine."

"It really isn't that far of a stretch, Kate. You're young and healthy; even without prenatal care you could have delivered a perfectly healthy baby. And you wouldn't have told anyone about it while you were on the run. I guess you just need a guy to blame it all on."

"The guy is actually the least of my issues," she sighs.

He looks over at her cautiously, "Were there… a lot of guys on the run?"

"…Why?" she asks, her gaze turning from Aaron up to Jack. "What kind of girl do you think I am, Jack?"

"I just meant… I-I didn't mean… I'm sorry?"

Kate stares at him for a moment before deciding to put him out of his misery, "I was married for a few months while I was on the run. I ended it about six months prior to the plane crash. Actually I probably am still married since there was never a divorce… if it was even legal to begin with since I used a fake name."

"Oh… Why'd you end it?"

"He was a cop. And sooner or later he was going to find out who I was. I actually really liked him. But the marshal just wouldn't give up on finding me."

"Oh… I guess if it's going to be his baby, you'll be seeing him again."

"I highly doubt he will want anything to do with me since I drugged him and told him that everything he knew about me was a lie." She moves to stand in front of him, a smirk on her face. "What are you doing, Jack? Trying to scope out any other potential competition now that Sawyer is gone?"

He rises as well, shifting the sleeping baby in his arms, and turns her own question back to her, "Is there any competition, Kate?"

"No."

"Good." They stare into each others' eyes, and then he places a hand on her cheek and leans in to gently kiss her. "You said you'd have my back on protecting those we left on the island. And now I'm promising you that I will have your back when we get home, Kate. I'll help you with Aaron and with your legal issues in whatever way I can."

"Are you sure you want to be making these promises, Jack? It's not going to be easy. I very well could be in prison for the rest of my life."

"Then Aaron and I will come visit you every day." She sighs, not believing that he could keep such a promise and not wanting him to resent her when he refused to break his promise to her. He gives her an encouraging smile, "I'm serious, Kate. I had nothing but my job before the plane crashed. I'm ready for a change. And I don't want you to disappear from my life now that we've made it off the island."

"I think you're delirious from lack of sleep, Jack," Kate takes Aaron back from him.

He nudges her chin to turn her face to him and captures her lips again. "Just giving you a dose of your own stubbornness. "

"Why don't you sleep on it? We'll talk in the morning, and if you're still serious…" she tries to push him to the stairs leading below deck to the bunks.

He grabs her to wrist to take her with him, "Come to bed with me, Kate."

"…Jack…" she freezes, looking at him questioningly.

"I didn't mean it that way. You need rest too. Besides, Sun and Aaron will be in the same room," he places a hand on her back to guide her down to the bunks.

When they get to the bunk, Jack climbs into the twin bed first, scooting over so he is on his back against the wall and reaches out to take Aaron from her. He gently rests the sleeping baby on his chest and holds out a hand to her. She hesitates for a long moment before taking his hand and climbing into the bed beside him, laying on her side against him with her head resting on her shoulder.

"Thank you for listening, Jack. And for not hating me now that you know what I did," she whispers, bringing her hand up to join his on Aaron's back.

"Thank you for trusting me enough to open up about what happened," he kisses the top of her head. "Good night, Kate."

"Night, Jack."


	3. Chapter 3

"Where is Kate?" Jack demands as Juliet enters the room on the other side of the glass wall of his prison.

"Why are you so worried about her, Jack?" Juliet taunts, setting down the sandwich and water bottle on the table of the other room.

"She's my friend."

"How much do you really even know about her?" she crosses her arms, coming to stand opposite him in front of the glass. He doesn't respond. "If you knew the truth about her, you would never want to see her again."

"I know she was a fugitive before the crash. Whatever she did doesn't matter to me."

The blonde woman stares at him for almost a full minute before speaking again. "You never should have trusted her, Jack. She's just as bad as Sawyer is. Maybe that's why she has a thing for him," she says, trying to taunt the doctor into asking about her.

"I trust her completely. Whatever she did is in her past now."

"Everything she has said to you could be a lie. How do you know that her name is even Kate?"

"The marshal knew her by that name. And the mugshots of her that he carried had that name on them. She may not have been the most open with me about her past, but she has never outright lied to me."

"Not that you know of," she starts to pace in front of him.

He looks down at the ground, trying to figure out what Kate could have lied about… or what she hadn't lied about. Realizing that this is exactly what they want, he shakes his head at himself for falling for their trap and turns back to the woman in front of him. "Unless you're going to bring me to her, don't talk about Kate again."

"She robbed a bank. And she tricked a cop into marrying her, then drugged him to get away before he could turn her in," Juliet ignores his request. He keeps his face stoic as she continues on. "And you know that toy airplane of hers? She told you that she killed the man it belonged to? Well, he isn't the only man she's killed, Jack."

"I don't believe you," Jack says defiantly.

"We have files on all of you, Jack."

"You're lying," he glares at the Other.

"Your wife was named Sarah. She thought she would never walk again, but you performed surgery on her and fixed her. But she left you for another man because you were always at work," she states, proving to him that the files and the information inside is real. "You hated your father because he always doubted you and made you feel inferior to him. You exposed him for being drunk during a surgery and got him fired from the hospital. Your mother blamed you and told you that you had to bring him back from Australia. But he was dead."

"Enough," he shouts and bangs his fist against the glass. "You have information on us. So what? That doesn't mean that what you're saying about her is true."

"Why would I lie to you, Jack?"

"This whole thing has been a lie to try to convince me to do surgery on Ben," he laughs. "Kate may not have been telling me the truth about everything, but I certainly trust her a lot more than I trust any of you people. Nothing you can say is going to change my mind about the surgery."

"Sit against the wall so I can bring in your food," she abruptly changes the subject.

"No. I'd rather starve than eat anything you made."

She stares at him for a moment then picks up the sandwich. "Suit yourself, Jack," she takes a bite of it as she heads to the door.

 **~Lost~**

Jack sits on the beach outside of his tent, staring out at the camp in front of him. He watches as she turns away from where Sawyer, Hurley, Charlie, and Claire are gathered around the ping-pong table and heads back to her own tent. A moment after she disappears inside, he decides that he needs to finally confront her and stands up.

He pauses outside her tent. Their relationship hadn't exactly been the best since they had returned just a few days ago from the Others' camp, and he isn't sure that he wants to make things worse by putting this added strain on their already fragile relationship. But as hard as he had tried, he could not get Juliet's words out of his head. He takes a deep breath, resolving that he would get the truth from her even if it ultimately ends up being the thing that drives them apart for good. "Kate?" he finally calls.

She pushes the tarp aside and comes out of the tent, a look of surprise briefly crossing her face before she hides it. "Hey, Jack."

"I, uh… wanted to talk to you about something."

"…Okay."

His gaze turns from her to look around their campsite. "It might be better if we took a walk."

"Yeah, okay. Just give me a moment," she says and heads back into her tent. She closes her eyes and lets out her breath, knowing what Jack had come to talk about. While she takes a minute to compose herself and think of what she could say to him, she gathers her hair up into a messy ponytail and ties it back. Then she grabs a long sleeved shirt to put on over her tank top as it was starting to get chillier as the sun sank to the horizon. After another deep breath, she steps out of the tent and starts to walk down the beach with the doctor.

Their trip is made in silence until they are almost two hundred yards away from their camp. Unable to stand it any longer, Kate speaks. "Juliet told me that you know what I did."

They stop walking and turn to face each other as he speaks, "She told you?"

"Yeah, when she brought me out into the jungle and handcuffed us together. She said… well, she said that I broke your heart."

"I know that it's hypocritical of me since I'm the one advocating to the rest of the camp that we can trust her, but you can't believe everything she says, Kate. And I wouldn't exactly say that I was heart-broken."

She gives a soft, self-deprecating chuckle, "Well, you've kind of been angry and distant with me since I went back to their camp to rescue you, so in this case I think that she's probably telling the truth."

"I guess I was kind of disappointed, but I don't even know if they were telling me the truth. That's why I wanted to talk to you," Jack avoids her gaze and looks out at the ocean.

She takes a seat and waits for him to follow suit. Sensing his reluctance to just outright ask her for the truth, Kate finally speaks again. "I don't know what exactly they showed you, Jack, but it wasn't a lie."

"I didn't see anything, Kate."

"Juliet said that there was a camera, that you saw the video."

"If there is a video, they didn't share it with me. She was probably lying to you too."

"Video or no video, I'm sure whatever they told you was not a lie." She sighs, covering her face with her hands in embarrassment. Angry at him for not just asking her for the truth, she finally just comes clean with him, "Sawyer and I slept together while we were in the cages."

Jack frowns, "Oh… that video…"

She rounds on him, rising onto her knees next to him. "What do you mean 'that video'? We've been talking about a video this entire time, Jack."

"I'm not sure that we've been talking about the same thing, Kate," he holds his hands up in self-defense. When she continues to glare at him, he continues speaking, "Look, I saw a video of Sawyer holding you in the cages. You were wearing his shirt, and he kissed you. I had escaped from my cell when I saw it on the security monitors; I was a little hurt by it at the time and agreed to do the surgery, but the more I thought about it, the more convinced I was that they had just faked it to get me to do what they wanted. It was all just too convenient."

"I'm sorry, Jack. It wasn't fake," she turns away from him and brings her knees up to her chest, not wanting to see the heartbreak on his face now that he knows the truth.

"They were messing with all of our heads, Kate. Everything they said and did was intentional in order to get us to do exactly what they wanted," he says, giving her an out.

Kate stares out at the ocean for a long time. "I thought you were angry at me, that you had been avoiding me, because of Sawyer. I thought that is what you brought me out here to talk about. And since you're denying that that is the case, what else did you want to talk about?"

"I…" he hesitates, not wanting to bring up her past now. "Forget it. It was probably all a lie anyway."

"Jack, they clearly were not lying to you about everything. So whatever it is… just ask. It's clearly been bothering you."

Jack wants to reach out and comfort her. But knowing that she is going to immediately pull away from him once he asks, he keeps his hands to himself. "Juliet told me what you did. Why you were a fugitive."

"You said you didn't want to know, Jack."

"I know what I said before. But now that they've put all of these ideas in my head, I just… I'm sorry, Kate. I need to know the truth."

A part of her wants to ask what ideas they gave him, to know what she could still hold back from him. But she knows that if she wants him to continue to trust her, she has to tell him everything. She studies him for a moment before finally speaking, "I killed my father. He would beat my mother… sometimes me too. So one day I put his drunk ass to bed, turned on the gas and lit a match, and drove away as the house exploded."

"Kate -"

"No, Jack," she says, her eyes hardening against the pity she sees in his eyes. "You don't get to ask about what he did to me. And don't you dare tell me that I was justified in what I did to him."

He quickly closes his mouth, and she continues her story.

"I went to the diner where my mom worked, told her what I had done and left. The next day the marshal arrested me, said that she had turned me in. I escaped when we were in an accident. Waited for a few weeks until things died down a little and then snuck in to the diner to ask her why she turned me in. She said that she had loved him and that I had killed him entirely for myself."

At this point, he can't help but reach out to her, his hand coming to rest on her shoulder. Though she looks down at his hand in confusion, she doesn't shrug it off.

"I went on the run after that, left my mom and Iowa behind for good. Eventually ended up in Florida, where I met Kevin. I never expected anything between us to last - he was a police officer. But somehow I let myself fall for him and we were getting married after only a few months of dating. The marriage only last two months; he wanted to take me out of the country for our honeymoon, but I couldn't go. I had no passport, and almost everything I had told him about myself was a lie. So I told him who I was one day, what I had done… and I drugged him so that he wouldn't lose his job.

"Not long after I left him I found out my mother had cancer. Tom was my best friend growing up and my first love; he was a doctor at the hospital she was at so I asked him to help me get in to see her. When she saw me, she called for help. Tom followed me out of the hospital and got into the car with me when I was trying to get away. The cops started shooting at us, and one of the bullets hit him," she pauses, wiping away a stray tear that had fallen.

"It was Tom's airplane," Jack says softly.

She looks over at him before nodding, "It was in our time capsule. We dug it up before he snuck me into the hospital."

"I'm sorry, Kate."

"I got away, but the marshal ended up with Tom's plane. He taunted me with it, eventually put it in a safety deposit box and sent me the key. So I convinced this guy and a couple of his friends to rob the bank, pretend I'm a victim in the robbery and they would get the plane out for me while they were stealing the cash. But they ratted me out to the manager during the robbery, wanted to hurt innocent people. So I shot all of them, got the plane, and just barely escaped from the marshal again."

Seeing that she seems to have finishes her story, he looks down at his lap and says, "So Juliet wasn't lying to me. She just omitted a lot of the story."

Kate shrugs, "I don't know what she told you."

There are several beats of silence between them before the doctor speaks again, "How did you get caught?"

"I went to Australia not long after the robbery. Worked on a farm for several months. The farmer was driving me to the train station one morning, and the marshal came up in the car beside us. He had tracked me there, and the farmer had turned me in. He was taking me to prison back home when the plane crashed."

"I can't say that I'm sorry he's dead."

"Doesn't really matter. If we ever do get off this island, I'm still going to jail," she turns to look out over the water again. "So I guess you know my entire story now."

"Yeah…" he frowns, something else now on his mind. "Look, Kate… I know she was just trying to come between us and I trust you, but… you haven't lied to me about anything, right?"

"I swear that everything I told you was the truth. The only thing I left out were details about my father because I don't want to relive them. If there's something that doesn't add up with what she told you, just ask me, Jack," Kate says, her eyes pleading with him to trust her.

"No, I didn't mean to imply that you were lying about what happened. I just meant… have you ever lied to me while we were on the island?" he looks down at his hand that now rests on the sand, too embarrassed to meet her eyes.

She pauses for a moment and then chuckles softly, "The drapes."

"Drapes?" he frowns, looking up at her again.

"Yeah… When we first met, you asked me if I could sew. I told you I made drapes for my apartment once. I don't think I've sewn anything in my life."

Jack touches the scar on his back, remembering the first time he saw her. "Well, I guess you must be a natural."

"You're just saying that because you couldn't see my stitches."

"They stopped the bleeding. And the scar isn't that terrible; I saw it in the bathroom mirror of the hatch."

She sighs, "Well, now you really have no reason to trust anything I ever said to you since I lied the very first time we met. But I never lied to you about anything else, Jack; I just may have omitted some of the truth at times."

"I believe you, Kate. You did tell me about Sawyer after all."

Feeling that she had already ruined any chance she had with him, Kate finally confronts him about their relationship, not wanting to prolong things. "So was Juliet lying to me? About me breaking your heart?"

"I thought that it was fake. So no… I was not heart-broken at the time."

"And now that you know that it was real?"

Jack takes a moment to answer, trying to choose his words carefully. "I want to believe that the Others set all of this up, that their mind games ultimately lead you two together. But you can't deny that you had feelings for him before they kidnapped us."

"Would I have slept with him if we were safe back here in our camp this whole time? Probably not. But I can't pin this all on the Others; maybe they pushed me closer to Sawyer, but I can't say that I was an unwilling participant. And it wasn't just out of pity because they were threatening to kill him."

"If Sawyer is who you want, then I will respect that decision, Kate."

"I don't regret what happened in that cage. But I am not interested in pursuing anything beyond friendship with Sawyer. There's… someone else."

Jack chuckles, "Sawyer not all that he hypes himself up to be?"

Kate smirks, "Are you really asking me how Sawyer is in bed, Jack?"

"You can dish on him on him before he gives you up. I heard Frogurt asking him questions about you once he learned you were locked up next to each other."

"I don't think you really want the details, Jack. And Sawyer may be a jerk at times, but he cares a lot more than he lets on. Besides, if he starts gossiping about me, I will just kick his as in front of everyone."

"Fair enough," he smiles at her. "So are you going to tell me who this 'someone else' is?"

"I don't know. If he hasn't figured it out by now, he might be hopeless," she places her hands behind her in the sand and leans back. "So those ideas about me that Juliet put in your head… any of them close?"

"…Not really. When she said that there were multiple deaths, my mind kind of jumped to you being some sort of serial killer; I was very glad to learn that I had not seriously misjudged your character."

"Might be debatable - I don't regret killing him. I regret almost everything else bad that I have done since then but not killing him."

"I know you said you didn't want to hear it, but it certainly sounds like he kind of deserved it. I thought my dad was bad, but I don't even know all that yours did, and I am already sure that you win the award for worst father. And your mom turned you in; she certainly isn't going to win mother of the year."

"Someday you can tell me your story and then we'll decide," she pokes his side.

He grabs her hand and studies the scars still healing on her wrist, "Looks like you're finally healing."

"It won't be long before someone ties my hands together again."

Jack stands and pulls her up as well. "Don't worry, Kate. I won't tie you up our first time. And I promise no cages," he grins at her and then starts walking up the beach to their camp, leaving her momentarily stunned and staring after him.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Thanks to everyone who has read this story and especially to those who have reviewed. This is the last chapter I have written so far. If there are any other ideas that you have, let me know. This last chapter is a little darker than the others.**

When Jack notices her stepping out of the trees onto the beach, he tunes out the argument that Charlie and Hurley are having and stares at her. Noticing that the doctor is distracted, Hurley turns around to follow his gaze. "Dude, go help her," he nudges, knowing that the doctor had a thing for her.

Jack hesitates before he takes off, jogging up to Kate and catching up to her just as she is reaching her tent. "Kate, what happened?"

Her eyes briefly meet his before she turns away, and in that moment, he can see that she is desperate for him to leave her be. "I'm fine, Jack."

"There is blood all over your shirt, and your arms are scraped up, Kate," he gestures to her once white tank top, now stained with red on her stomach.

"I'll be fine. I just need to get rid of the blood."

"All the other people on this island brings me every single medical problem they have, no matter how trivial they are, and yet you never seem to have any complaints. Let me help you, just this once. I can get you cleaned up and make sure they don't get infected," he rests a hand on her shoulder.

"I'm sure you have bigger issues to worry about, Jack. These are just some small scratches," she says, avoiding looking down at the scrapes all along her forearms and the ones currently hiding under her shirt on her stomach. The doctor doesn't speak but continues to study her face. After almost of full minute of silence between them and him not giving up, she cracks, "Fine."

"Most of the medical supplies are in the hatch now. You're good to walk? It's only a little way from here," he asks as he starts to lead her back to the jungle.

"Yes, my legs are fine."

They walk to the hatch in a rather uncomfortable silence, her desperately hoping for some escape from him and him unsure of what he can say to keep her from running. When they enter fifteen minutes later, he directs her toward the bedroom while he gathers supplies.

He brings a chair up to sit across from her as he tends to her wounds, setting the bowl of water, washrags, gauze, and peroxide on the table next to them. She flips her arms over for him, exposing her forearms for him to gently wipe off. "So are you going to tell me what happened?" he asks as he finishes washing the blood from her arms.

She hisses and tries to pull away as the peroxide-covered washcloth touches her skin, but he keeps a firm grip on her arm to prevent her from doing so. "I heard that thing… the monster out in the woods again. Slipped off the tree branch I was sitting on."

"Kate, you have to let me examine you. You could have way worse injuries than these scrapes if you fell out of the tree. How high up were you?"

"I didn't fall out of the tree, Jack. I caught myself," she nods to her forearms, explaining the scratches. When he reaches for the gauze, she protests again. "You don't have to waste that on me. They've stopped bleeding and don't look that bad."

He looks down to study her arms further, debating how far to push the issue. "Can I at least wrap your palm up?" he finally asks.

Her gaze follows his to the cut running diagonally across her right palm from below the thumb up towards her pinky. Kate meets his eyes briefly and gives a short nod of acquiescence, hoping that if she gave in now, he wouldn't insist on examining the rest of her.

"So you slipped off the tree branch?" he asks as he wraps the gauze around her palm.

"I didn't fall out of the tree," she repeats. "The monster just surprised me. I wrapped my arms around the branch to keep from falling, hung there for a moment waiting to see if it would come back before I pulled myself back up onto it. When I still didn't hear it, I climbed down and headed back to camp."

"And what happened to your shirt?" he gestures to the blood on it after he finishes with the gauze.

"Must have come from my arms."

Jack frowns, "There's a hole in your shirt."

"The bark on the tree ripped my arms up. It must have ripped my shirt as I pulled myself up onto it. I'm fine."

"People who are indeed fine don't feel the need to keep mentioning it, Kate."

They have another staring match, and she soon finds herself giving in to him again. Standing, she pulls her tank top over her head.

He keeps his eyes trained on hers after she has removed her shirt and once she looks away, he lets his eyes fall to the scraps covering most of the right side of her abdomen. He uses the warm water and rag to remove the blood, trying his best to keep his focus on her injuries and not let his eyes wander. However, as the rag moves further down her toned stomach, he can't help but notice a scar starting about an inch below her belly button and disappearing below the waistline of her jeans as it approaches her left hip, its location not consistent with any surgical scar he had seen before.

Kate feels the hesitation in his movements and knows that he has seen the scar. Closing her eyes, she hopes that he does not mention it.

Jack quickly finishes with the water and reaches for the peroxide again. She wills herself not to flinch away from the antiseptic, but when her body betrays her, he reaches around to rest his palm on her back. Instead of smooth skin, his index finger unexpectedly brushes against marred flesh, and he immediately freezes, fearing that she has further injuries. "Kate," he nudges gently, trying to get her to turn around.

She refuses to budge and grabs his forearm in her gauze-covered hand, preventing his hand from moving to explore further. "Jack," she warns.

"Are you lying about falling from the tree? Kate, if you don't let me look at it now, it could turn into something serious," he insists, rubbing his finger against her back again for emphasis.

"I'm not lying about the tree," she pushes his hand away from her and refuses to meet his eyes, afraid that he would see her trying to hold back the tears.

"Kate…" he stands, not wanting to have to force her into showing him but knowing that he can't give in to her if there is a chance she may be more injured that she is willing to admit.

"They're old scars, Jack. They have nothing to do with the tree," she sighs exasperatedly, trying to get him to just let it go.

"There's more than one?" he frowns, his mind now racing through possible scenarios of what could have happened to her.

As a single tear escapes her eye, she shakes her head, not a denial of more scars but a sign that she would not answer any more of his questions.

He softens his voice when he speaks again, "I just want to make sure you're okay."

She closes her eyes, no longer able to look at him without breaking down. After another deep breath, she slowly turns around and reaches for the tank top she had discarded on the bed minutes ago.

Jack finds two rows of circles running down her back, one on each side of her spine. Each scar is about a centimeter across, and they are approximately an inch apart, five in each column.

Before he can make any further examination, she has pulled her shirt down to cover the scars. She pauses for a moment, her back still to him, and then quietly says, "No, I'm not okay, Jack. But there is nothing you can do to change that." Without giving him a chance to respond, she darts out of the room and leaves him staring after her.

 **~Lost~**

"Kate?" Jack approaches her seated at a small campfire outside her tent. She startles at the sound of her name and drops the small airplane that had been in her hand. He takes the fact that she doesn't tell him to leave and that she stays seated herself as a good sign. "May I join you?"

At her ambivalent shrug, he takes a seat next to her and leans back against the log she is resting on. He opens his backpack and pulls out a couple water bottles. "I brought some things for you," he holds them out to her.

She eyes them for a moment before finally taking one bottle from him, opening it to take a sip. Next he pulls out a bottle of Tylenol and holds it out. She shakes her head and speaks for the first time since she left him in the hatch earlier, "They don't hurt. Save it for someone else."

He sighs and puts the medication back in his bag before pulling out at dark blue sweatshirt. "I, uh… found this in the wreckage. I've only worn it once. But I thought you could wear it next time you insisted on climbing the trees. Might offer more protection than your tank top."

She turns her face away from him to hide her smile at his concern for her, "Or you're trying to tell me to cover up."

A strained look crosses his face. "I'm sorry about earlier, Kate. I shouldn't have pushed you, and I came here to apologize."

Kate takes the sweatshirt from him and pulls it over her head. "So what other apologies do you have in that bag of yours?" she asks, giving him a small smile to let him know that they would be alright.

He returns the smile and pulls out a couple of Apollo bars, "I heard that you were a fan of these."

"You may have heard correctly," she reaches out to take the chocolate from him.

"But before you start on dessert, I figured you probably hadn't had dinner yet," he hands a container to her. "It's not much. But at least it's a change from the fruit you've been surviving on since we got here."

"Did you make this?" she asks when she finds macaroni and cheese inside.

"From a box in the hatch. Can't promise it'll be that great," he holds a fork.

"You first," she offers the container back to him.

"I only have one fork."

"We're all sharing water bottles, Jack. I think sharing the fork is the least of our concerns," she smiles.

He smiles back, "Ladies first."

She finally accepts the fork and stabs a few noodles on it. "How do I know you're not trying to poison me?"

"If I poison you, then I'll never get the story behind those scars."

She slowly pulls the fork from her mouth and chews the macaroni. "Not bad for a deserted island," she offers him the fork. When he reaches for it, she pulls it away suddenly and takes another bite. "I thought you came here to apologize, Jack. And yet you keep bringing it up."

"I've found that when I pester you enough, you seem to give in."

She takes another bite and frowns, "You know, I've never gotten an explanation for your hardcore spinal surgeon tattoos. And that is probably a far more interesting story than mine."

He contemplates for a moment before answering, "My wife filed for a divorce because I was too obsessed with my job to spend time with her. So I went to Thailand. Met a girl there that did tattoos and then got beat up when her brother found out she gave me the tattoos. They were supposed to be some sacred ritual, and I was an outsider. So… no, I'm not really a hardcore spinal surgeon. Though they did drive my dad insane before he died."

"That was a disappointing story," she hands over the macaroni.

"It's the truth."

They sit in silence for a few minutes, both studying the fire while he eats some of the dinner he had made for her. He gives the food back to her, "So are you going to tell me?"

"Jack… I can't."

"Cigarette burns." Her head whips around to look at him in shock. "That's what they are, right?"

She hesitates before nodding, "How did you know?"

"I did a couple rotations through the ED. We had women who were beaten by their husbands, children hurt by their parents. Sometimes they would have similar marks on them." She remains silent, looking down at the container of macaroni and stirring it slowly. He reaches out to place his hand on her wrist, stopping her movement. "Who was it, Kate?"

"You're going to look at me differently if I tell you the whole story, Jack."

"If this has to do with why the marshal was after you, I told you that we all get a second chance. It doesn't matter to me what you did. And if it involves something happening to whoever it was that was hurting you, then they deserved it."

"It's not what I did that is going to change how you look at me - it's what he did to me."

"This doesn't have to change anything, Kate. I promise." When she stands, Jack is worried that she is going to run away again. But she enters her tent, pausing in the doorway to hold the tarp open for him to follow her.

She pulls the sweatshirt he had given her over her head and then turns away from him to remove her t-shirt. "You don't have to stay all the way over there, Jack," she says shyly, turning her head to look over her shoulder at him.

He closes the gap between them and hesitates before eventually reaching his hand out to touch the scars on her back. She moves away from his touch, and he immediately starts apologizing. "Sorry, Kate. I didn't mean to-"

"No, it's fine. Your hands are cold."

"You can get dressed; I don't need to see them."

"Yes, you do, Jack. You're a doctor; you need to examine things, touch them," she reaches down for his hand now at his side and guides it to her back again, not flinching away this time. "And… I don't think that I can look at you while I tell you this story."

"Kate…" he whispers, closing his eyes as he runs his fingers down one column of burn scars.

"It started on my twelfth birthday. Mom went to work at the diner after we finished eating cake. He followed me into my bedroom that night, said he want to tuck me in. I had just put the pieces together a couple week prior, realized that he was beating her. I had confronted her about it, but she denied it. Maybe she said something to him or… I don't know. He had been so sweet to her at dinner that night… I guess a part of me hoped he had really changed."

A tear escapes her eye but she refuses to wipe it away, not wanting to let Jack know. He moves his hand up from the scars to her shoulder blade.

"I had no idea what was even happening until it was over with. I just laid there on my stomach, my face buried in the pillow so he wouldn't see me cry. And then I heard him get dressed and light up a cigarette. He said if I ever told anyone, he'd kill my mother. And then he pressed his cigarette against my back until I screamed out in pain."

Jack lifts his other hand and counts each of the scars as his fingers run across them, though he had already counted them several times before. But now that he knows what they mean, he has to be sure. The top two marks rest just beneath the back of her bra, and he carefully slides his finger underneath, checking to be sure that there were not any more. "There… Kate, please tell me that you don't have any more of these on you," he asks, his voice shaking.

Kate reaches up to take the hand still placed on her shoulder. With her hand over his, she guides it carefully down the unscathed left side of her abdomen and to the waistband of jeans. Their fingers brush over the long, thin scar he had seen earlier in the day before finding another circle scarred on the flesh just inside her hipbone. "There's a matching one on the other side. One for each birthday since I was twelve. And then when I turned twenty-four, I decided to fight back. His beer bottle broke during the struggle and he used a piece of it to give me a different scar that year," she runs his fingers along the thin line cutting across her stomach. "But I got away before… anything else happened that year."

"Is he in jail now?"

"I killed him," she says quietly. "About a month after my birthday. Burned him alive for what he did to me and to my mom. But when I told her what I had done… she turned me in to the cops, said that she loved him and that it was selfish of me to kill him. I… I never told her what he did to me."

The doctor carefully wraps his arms around her, one across her stomach and the other up by her shoulders, and pulls her back in his embrace so that she is pressed against his chest. "He deserved it, Kate."

She wipes the tear tracks from her cheeks and nods, "I know he did. I just wish my mother would have realized it, that she would have protected me from him and from the cops."

"I'm so sorry, Kate."

"It's not your fault, Jack."

He lets her go, bending down to pick up her shirt and hand it to her as he comes to stand in front of her. "It's not yours either. No one deserves to go through that."

After pulling her shirt on, she meets his eyes, "I know I made you promise that this wouldn't change things, but it's an impossible promise for you to keep. I understand -"

"Nothing has to change for the worse. I think that knowing this helps me to understand you better - why you are always running, your trust issues, maybe why you keep putting your own life in danger by volunteering for all of these trips across the island. And we can work on these things… if you want."

"Trust issues? Jack, I wouldn't believe for a second that you would ever do what he did to me."

"Doesn't mean you trust me," he pulls her toy airplane from his pocket and holds it out to her. "But maybe someday you'll trust me enough to tell me the rest of the story. Because from what I know now, I don't think that plane belongs to your dad."

She shakes her head but doesn't respond.

"It's okay; you've already told me plenty just now. But when you're ready, I will listen," he pulls her in for another hug, one hand coming to rest over the scars on her back.

Kate tentatively returns his embrace, and when he starts to pull away to leave, she grabs his hand. "Jack… just so you know… I trust you more than I've trusted anyone else in a long time."

They exit her tent, and he reaches for his backpack. "You could stay for a while if you want. We could find something lighter to talk about," she smiles at him shyly.

"We are stranded on an island, and you just told me about your terrible childhood. What light topic could you possibly have in mind?" he smiles back.

Kate takes a seat beside the fire again, "So these tattoos of yours… what do they mean?"

He laughs, "You're never going to let these tattoos go, are you?"

As he takes a seat beside her, she nudges his shoulder with her own and teases him, "Says the person who wouldn't let my scars go."


End file.
